Calling Football Stats People - Download Box Score Data

Does anyone know a good free source for downloading box score data? Primarily interested in this year's games, but somewhat interested in previous years as well. I'm looking to put together some statistical summaries of B1G games and would love to not have to enter data by hand if it's already out there (and free).

Go Blue: Scored in 361 Consecutive Games

When Roundtree crossed the goal line in q1 today, he added the most recent link to the chain of games in which Michigan has scored at least once, stretching back to 10/20/1984 at Iowa. BYU also had a 361 game non-shutout streak, from 1975-2003. Michigan has tied that streak and can take sole possession of the record with a score in it's bowl game. A big thank-you to all those players who have blocked, run, passed, caught or intercepted during the last 28 seasons.
Note: the record book precedes this season; 349+12=361.
NCAA FBS record book ( see page 111)

Inside the Box Score - The Game

Today put the exclamation point at the end of a regular season marking a new era in Michigan football; an era that allows Brian to write a post-game wrap-up story about Michigan beating Ohio. No pressure Brian, but we’re all expecting something epic. It’s also an era in which my 7 year old son gets to watch Michigan beat osu*. It is an era where the TEAM wins games, not the offense, not the defense, not the special teams, just the TEAM. Although, let it be noted that the offense that Rich Rodriguez envisioned put up 40 points on one of the better defenses in the country. After leaning on the defense for much of the season, the offense was machine-like in its efficiency. I found that appropriate. But that is well-worn territory, and not worth discussing any further here.

This week, I will leave the cat photos, picture-page analysis, and masterful photoshops to those who do them much better than me. And on this, the weekend after Thanksgiving, I will give my thanks to all the excellent content-generators on this site. It was truly a memorable season. I will play my part on this Blog’s team and do what I do. Give you the link, and dive into the numbers.

* I prefer the lowercase “osu” to the uppercase “OHIO,” because uppercase letters are reserved for proper nouns, and there is nothing proper about that school.

In a game where the lead changed hands five times, the impetus was getting whiplash. First, osu scored, then we tallied 16 in a row to take an insurmountable lead. At least, at that point, I thought there was no way the 118th ranked passing offense was going to score 17 points, let alone 34. I don’t think this game had momentum changes, as much as it was just a case of two on-fire offenses holding serve.

It seemed like UofM was playing a grind it out game, demonstrating our superiority on a play-by-play basis, only for the big plays to swing momentum back osu’s way. The long pass(es) from Miller, the fumble by Denard, the fumble by Hagerup. I kept waiting for osu to return the favor, but they never did, well, until the very last play of the game. Hagerup’s fumble was actually recovered by him, so it goes down as a failed 4th down conversion. The turnover battle saw each team losing one, and each team going 1 for 2 on 4th down. It just so happened that osu’s two (interception and failed 4th down conversion) came on the same play.

Why do I suggest we were grinding it out? Well, we did have 277 yards rushing to their 137. We had 444 yards total offense to their 372. We had 35:10 of that worthless TOP to their 24:50, and 23 first downs to their 18. But something kept them in the game. The big play. Fortunately, they fell one big play short, the Miller overthrow on their last drive. Even then, I believe Denard would have lead us back to victory like he did twice against ND, because on this day, Denard would not be denied. It was time for him, and us, to eat.

Filthy

Filthy gets moved up in the normal pecking order this week, in honor of the original “Filthy,” Denard Robinson.

I think it’s safe to say that Kovacs may be a captain next year. I’m not sure who gets the nod on the offensive side, as there isn’t a senior lineman like Molk returning. I wouldn’t be surprised if Denard gets elected captain. It very clearly is his team. The players respond to him and you can see the belief on their faces that he WILL LEAD THEM to victory. OK, enough commentary, how about some numbers.

Denard gained 170 yards rushing on 26 carries, for an average of 6.5 yards per carry. He had a long of 41 yards and two TDs rushing. In the process he passed my favorite all-time Wolverine, Rob Lytle, for third place in yards rushing in a game against osu. I was six when Lytle went for 164 yards against osu. My son is seven.

Denard was 14 for 17 passing for 167 yards. He threw 3 TD passes. 5 TDs in one game? Filthy.

Toussaint pitched in 120 yards on 20 carries, for a nice round 6 yard per carry average. He had a long of 46 yards. What was I saying about osu getting all the big plays? Hmmm, I’ll have to rethink that.

UofM was 5 for 11 on third down, but that includes an 0 for 4 start. Once the offense got rolling, osu had trouble stopping us, and a lot of that was due to some QB draws that went for double-digit yards.

Trash Cans Full of Dirt

Morgan and Demens lead the way with 10 and 8 tackles, respectively. Gotta love it when 2 LBs are your leading tacklers. Gotta hate giving up 34 points, though. But hey, it was arguably the greatest Wolverine win in my lifetime considering all the baggage and 7 years crap. The National Championship Rose Bowl victory is the only other contender. If I was a year older, Bo’s first victory over Woody would be in the mix.

Six players combined for 7 TFLs, lead by Van Bergen and Kovacs with 2 apiece. Four of the seven TFLs were sacks. Only one of the sacks was for meaningful yards, a 10 yarder by Kovacs. I am not looking forward to facing Miller three more times. If he learns how to throw he will be dangerous.

15 players got in the defensive stats section, and the TEAM was listed for a bunch of dots. I’m not sure what the TEAM did, but hey, it’s nice to give a shout out to the TEAM.

Avery did get credit for an interception for the last play of the game. Avery also forced a fumble, on a kickoff IIRC, but osu recovered it.

Van Bergen was the only one who got credit for a BrUp, but I’m pretty sure Countess broke up a pass, too.

We were credited with no QHs.

The play of the game, or at least one of them, is not recorded in the boxscore in a meaningful way. After Hagerup’s failed 4th down conversion, osu took over at our 31. They got down to our 5 yard line, and had 1st and goal. A couple strong defensive efforts lead to 3rd down. On the next play, according to Chris Spielman (we were never shown this,) osu tried their TD pass to Stoneburner play, the one that got him TDs on ~ half his receptions this year. Only this time, Kovacs stayed with Stoneburner, and forced Miller to keep it. Jibreel Black (Jibreel Black? Yes, Jibreel Black) kept outside leverage, wrapped up Miller and forced the FG. At the other end of the field, we did the same thing, only their 3rdstring strong safety, Storm Klein, bit on the playfake leaving Koger wide open for the TD. (It may not have been Storm Klein, but for the purposes of this narrative, I’m going with Storm Klein.)

Big John R. Studd Referee Section

B. LeMonnier was the referee. He and his crew mostly kept their flags in their pockets, until they decided to throw 2 on us on the same play, and swing the game from UofM covering to osu. I’m not suggesting anything nefarious, only that a lot of money changed hands on that play.

We had three penalties for 29 yards. After beginning the game like another B1G state school, osu settled down and only committed 5 penalties for 47 yards. So congratulations, Sparty, you were the team most lacking in sportsmanship that we faced all year. To sink lower than the buckeyes? Pathetic. Enjoy getting beat by the Badgers next week.

On the play where Touss scored a touchdown, only to have the replay official overturn the call, I was livid. In the extended boxscore under double birds given, you will see ST3 with 1. (Fortunately, my son was in the other room at the time.) As I understand it, they can only overturn the original call if the evidence is indisputable. Well, I’M DISPUTING THAT CALL! When they said put the ball down on the 1 foot line, I nearly flipped. The one or two inch line, maybe, but 1 foot?!? I was actually questioning at that point whether the top of the grass counts as the ground or the actual ground is the ground. There is no way that should have been overturned. But as I’ve written before in these diaries, I’m an incredible M homer.

On the next play where Omameh held, osu was lined up offsides, and the Watson penalty was really weak. I’m just saying.

San Diego49ers

We had 7 players catch passes, with 5 players catching at least 2 passes. Kevin Koger lead the way with 4 receptions for 40 yards. He had one TD.

Koger, Hemingway, and Odoms caught TD passes.

Gallon had the block that sprung Denard for his 41 yard TD run.

Hexadecimal Points

Hawthorne was the only M hexadecimalist to show up, with 1 tackle. Our string was kept alive by one tackle.

I hate osu, but their team is loaded with hexadecimalists. Shazier is 1A, and they have three other players listed as 5E, 1D, and 1F.

Both teams wore their normal uniforms. Obviously lacking on osu’s helmets were a lot of those buckeye stickers. That’s what happens when your best players are suspended for 5 to 10 games, and the rest of your guys are mediocre. They just don’t give those out for completed passes, apparently.

Derpan Meyer

I will keep this section short, because the focus should be on the game. What I don’t understand is why ESPN won’t allow Kirk Herbstreit to predict the outcome of games he is calling, but Spielman can call an osu game (and Matt Millen can call a PSU game.) It would seem like there is an obvious solution to this. LET HERBSTREIT PREDICT THE GAMES! Sorry about that.

Spielman reminded us that he was a senior on Earl Bruce’s last team (the Fedora game.) I don’t need to be reminded of that game, OK, thanks.

We Haz Special Teams

Net yards per kickoff was a push, 46.6 for them and 46.0 for us. Each team had 4 touchbacks, and I think they were all in the north endzone, as a southerly wind of 10-20 MPH was blowing. (Does “S 10-20” mean the wind was blowing from the south to the north, or vice versa? I’m no meteorologist.)

Net yards per punt were 40 for osu and 47.5 for us. So, for punts we were able to get off, derp derp derp, we did very well. Two of their punts landed inside the 20. They only punted 3 times, and we only punted twice. Remember, there were very few turnovers. Almost every drive ended in points.

Gibbons hit his season long of 43 yards, to put us up 6. It’s possible osu could have gotten down the field for a tying field goal, but when Gibbons hit the FG, it made it that much tougher for osu, especially since Fickell wasted a time-out on our previous drive. Gibbons, you put it through the uprights. Thank you.

Opponent Bullets

Zach Boren got a holding penalty. Ha Ha.

When I was in 8thgrade, Sports Illustrated had a full page picture of Mike Boren in his UofM uniform in their preview issue. I put that up in my locker at school. He broke his arm that year and didn’t play much if at all. It’s been all downhill for me and the Boren’s since then.

Screw the buckeyes, if you want to see their stats go to 11 warriors.

Random, as Yet Unnamed, Bullets

I NEED MOAR NUMBERZ! 57-44-6. Strike that. It’s now 58-44-6. 2926 days. Strike that too. How does “zero” sound to you? {I wrote this on Saturday.} It’s music to my ears.

Both teams had 6 scoring drives. We had 5 TDs and 1 FG, they had 4 TDs and 2 FGs. That, and the safety, was the difference in the game.

Denard pitched to Odoms once, leading to one of our fumbles, that fortunately we recovered. Hey Brian, maybe that’s why they don’t pitch on the pitch play.

My son saw me taking notes during the game, and he wanted to participate. So in my notes, I have “Good kick return” written by my son for Gallon’s return. We may have a future blogger in our midst.

After writing 12 of these diaries, I feel like writing a diary about writing diaries, sort of like Kramer’s coffee table book about coffee tables.

Brady Hoke’s smile at the end of the game was awesome. He must be elated. What a dream come true. Congratulations, Brady, Mattison, Borges, the rest of the staff, and to TEAM 132. 10-2, 8 home wins, and maybe a BCS Bowl invite. Just incredible.

One last input from my son, at the end he said, “write, ‘one happy ending.’”

Inside the Box Score - Game 10

It feels great to win a rivalry game, even if it’s just our opponent who considers it a rivalry. By my count, Brady is now 4-1 in rivalry games. I’m including San Diego State, because you don’t just take another team’s coach without there being some hurt feelings. Brady is like the personification of the little brown jug, if only it wore short sleeves and was neither little, nor brown.*

Initial impetus went to Michigan after Touss’ 65 yard run that basically told Illinois, yeah, you have a good defense but we can run on you. We controlled the impetus for the rest of the half.

Illinois had two nice plays to start the second half, but our defense followed that with a Desmond Morgan de-cleater (everyone who saw/heard it knows what I’m talking about), a blitzing Kovacs TFL, and a monster sack from Van Bergen, who split a double-team and jumped on top of Scheelhaase’s back. Burst of Impetus regained.

It did appear that Illinois adjusted to our inside running game, and started to slow us down. When Denard went out injured, things got a little dicey. Then, JT Floyd picked off Scheelhaase and almost returned it for six. When Gardner threw for a TD shortly after that, the game was basically over. Illinois was beaten by our backup QB again.

Trash Cans Full of Dirt

JT FLOYD!

Mike Martin lead us with 9 tackles. That’s right, an interior defensive lineman lead us with NINE tackles. I’m going to miss that guy. He also got half a sack and 2 QHs. Roh also had 2 QHs. We were QH’ing Scheelhaase all game long.

Back to Floyd. He’s been a punching bag on this blog and I’ve thought that was a little unfair, but what do I know, I only watch the game once. I hope the “JT Floyd is not a good corner” meme can die a quick and sudden death after today. He had 4 tackles, an interception that put the game away, and 2 pass breakups. I also didn’t notice him whiffing on any tackles.

Desmond Morgan was second in tackles with 8, including the aforementioned de-cleater. Can I have 3 more years of that, please?

VAN BERGEN!!! He gets three of these “!,” one for each of his TFLs, that included 2.5 sacks for 27 yards. On one of his sacks he proved that Lewan is not the only one who likes to ride donkeys.

The first time Illinois was in our territory, there was 1:45 left in the third quarter.

Just wanted to let that sink in for a minute.

The Team had 6 TFLs, 4 of which were sacks, 5 passes broken up, and the 4 QHs. Yes, Illinois’ offense is struggling, but our guys still needed to go out there and make plays and they did. I can’t see Martinez or Miller doing that much better throwing than Scheelhaase did. We’ll need to stop their run games, but it will be nice having those games at home. Not to jinx things, but 10-2 is still a distinct possibility, and that starts with defense.

Filthy

I apologize to Touss for that “china in a bull store” crack last week. Touss was in Bull-mode all afternoon. He had 27 carries for 192 yards. That works out to 7.1 yards per carry. He had a 65 yard run that set the tone for the first half.

Denard had two nice touchdown runs, but was otherwise held in check by the Illini.

I know “Molk” doesn’t show up in the boxscore, but 223 NET YARDS RUSHING against a good rush defense does, and a lot of that is attributable to one David Molk. What a game he had.

San Diego49ers

Odoms caught two for 46 yards. One was a 27 yard TD that put the game away. I’ve always liked Odoms, and I couldn’t be happier for him.

Koger caught two, one for 40 yards where he dragged the DB for the last 10.

Big John R. Studd Referee Section

The linesman was Tripp Sutter. Tripp, I assume you are a grown man. Why are we still going with, “Tripp?”

Michigan had 4 penalties for 29 yards, and Illinois was flagged for 4 penalties and 25 yards.

After last week, it was nice not having to complain about the refs, but man were there a bunch of replays.

I think the lesson we learned from the Iowa game is that you can get a little physical with the wideouts and sometimes get away with it.

I thought they missed a helmet-to-helmet hit that knocked out Denard, and a few other late hits on Illinois, but all-in-all, there’s nothing to complain about this week.

Hexadecimal Points

Normal jerseys from both sides. I will say that I find orange to be a complementary color, like white, grey, yellow, and maize. I don’t think you should wear a complementary color with white pants. It’s not a good look, but Illinois has to concede blue to us, forcing them into the orange unis, and making them look like an orange creamsicle.

2H Matthew Cavanaugh had 2 tackles and 5G Frank Clark had one, and gave up the edge, again. Cavanaugh is making the most of his ST play. That guy always ends up making a couple tackles.

#24, Delonte Hollowell, didn’t show up in the boxscore, but he made a huge play on special teams. On one of our punts, the Illini returner muffed the catch. Before he had a chance to cover the ball, Hollowell nailed him. It was a nice, clean hit that allowed McColgan to recover the fumble.

Derpan Meyer

Announcers were Justin Kutcher and Craig James.

Referring to Illinois’ offensive line, Craig James said, and I quote, “They’re athletic and I watch them, and the eye candy of their offensive line is there.” Hey, Illini linemen, if Craig asks you for a post-game interview, you should probably politely decline. And Craig, when the third thing that shows up on Google when you search for Craig James is “Craig James killed 5 hookers,” you probably shouldn’t talk about linemen as eye candy.

When I found out Craig was announcing our game, I decided NOT to use the “Craig James killed 5 hookers” angle {allegedly, I know, I know,} but when you throw a fat one over the plate like that, you leave me no choice.

I’m not sure which name is better, Reilly O’Toole, or Pat Nixon-Youman. On the one hand, you’ve got “Reilly O’Toole.” On the other, you’ve got a former First Lady with a great Chris Berman name, “Pat Nixon You-Da-man!” And let’s not forget Illinois DB Supo Sanni.

Illinois, after getting only one first down in the first half, actually had one more first down than we did, 15-14. But when you only accrue 37 yards rushing, you are usually not going to win the game. Illinois averaged 1.1 yards per carry. I’m giggling.

* This is the section where I discuss turnovers and other momentum changing plays. There was one burst of impetus in this game. Minnesota kicked off to start the game. That's it. They were never in it. I bet that "adjusted winning percentage" diary shows us pegged at 100% for the duration.

* For those that care, the turnovers were Mich: 0, Minn: 2. It's always nice to win the turnover battle, even if the team you are playing would be in danger of being relegated FROM the MAC. Notice, I wrote "from" and not "to". I think Minnesota would have trouble competing in the MAC this year and would be relegated to some FCS conference. I understand their starting QB was out, but they didn't do anything right all day.

Trash Cans Full of Dirt

* Craig Roh had a nice tackle early in the game for no gain. Later in the game, he had a tackle for a loss of 1 yard. The difference between these two tackles? One yard. He also gets credit in the box score for the latter, but not the former. When the box score starts including advanced defensive statistical metrics, I'd like to see them have TFNGs, for tackle for no gain. They are almost as important as the TFL, and way more important than the TWDF (tackle way down field.)

* The leading tacklers were Roh, Demens, and Countess with 5 each. That is such a wonderful sentence to write. The defense was only on the field for 47 plays. That's what happens when you hold a team to 0 for 11 on 3rd down conversions.

* 25 players showed up in the defensive stats section. Black, Van Bergen, and Ryan each recorded a sack. That's one less than we had so far this season. I know we played a couple run teams, but I like when the pressure leads to sacks as well as hurried throws.

Hexadecimal Points (HT: Number 7)

* Our helmets have wings! They also have numbers! If RR was still the coach, I shudder to think of the resulting outrage. It would certainly bring down the interwebz. I'm going to give Brady a pass on this because apparently the players asked for it, and it's their team.

* I would love to see 7A on Hawthorne's helmet. That's how he's listed in the defensive stats. M. Cavanaugh also shows up as 2H.

* When Chris Martin of B1G Network fame tried to describe Denard, he said the best way to categorize him was "filthy." We finally got the game in which Denard's carries were limited. He rushed only 6 times for 51 yards. He made us all breathe a little more easily by going 15-19 through the air. (That sound you just heard was the rest of the B1G cursing.)

* Vincent Smith was also filthy, with a TD running, receiving, and throwing. He was named the Hardest Working Player," by the B1G Network. (For some reason, this reminds me of the old "Taco Bell Unsung Player Award" they used to have during Pistons broadcasts. It rotated between Rodman and Salley, until they were both Sung Players.) In my opinion, the hardest working man was Michael Schofield. Due to our lack of depth along the O-Line, he played the whole way. I think he must have had 20 more snaps than anyone else. That is a hard working player. I thought that the way we controlled the ball, we must have run 100 plays like Indiana did to us last year. Nope, only 73. Lots of runs keeps the clock moving. Still, yeoman work by Schofield. (Yeoman, that's a good thing, right?)

This was the first game where I knew while watching that I was going to post this diary, so I took a few notes during the game. Unfortunately, my notes are full of really strange things the B1G Network announcers said. In a post this week, Brian lamented the dearth of good names for our weekly features. I'm going to offer up a couple, and use them for sub-titles. First, after SDSU recovered UofM's first fumble, B1G announcer Eric Collins suggested this could be the "burst of impetus" for SDSU to get back in the game. (Trust me on this, I took notes during the game.) I can only guess that Eric got tired of the "change in momentum" cliche, went to the thesaurus, and treated us all to Burst of Impetus. So when I talk about the turnover margin, that section will be sub-titled, "Burst of Impetus." I think this one works for the weekly turnover feature.

The second thing I wrote down was, "trash can full of dirt," when commentator Chris Martin was straining for words to describe Mike Martin. I don't think trash cans full of dirt are particularly mobile, so this doesn't really describe Martin, who last I checked, was bursting past SDSU linemen with tremendous impetus. I think the trash can full of dirt more aptly describes the 330 pound nose tackle a la BWC. Regardless, the defensive stats section will now be sub-titled: "Trash cans full of dirt." OK? OK. On to the commentary, bullet-style with awesome B1G Network style sub-titles:

Burst of Impetus

* SDSU won the turnover margin, 4-3. However, if you look deeper into the box score, you'll see the stat of the game, 4th Down Conversions. SDSU was 0 for 3, UofM was 1 for 1. Getting stopped on 4th down is effectively a turnover, since you don't get the punt yardage, so really, we won the extended turnover margin 6-4. I'd like to know what went on during the timeout before our decision to go for it on 4th down. I'd like to think that Brady Hoke said, what the heck are we doing punting here, WE'RE MICHIGAN FERGODSAKES!

* SDSU went 3 and out after our first turnover. The defense stepped up all day long and limited the damage from our turnovers.

Trash Cans Full of Dirt

* 20 players showed up in the defensive stats. I like this stat as a measure of our depth and gang tackling. Getting more helmets to the football is a UofM defensive tradition, and that created the first Hillman fumble yesterday.

* Three players tied for the lead in tackles, Gordon, Countess, and Demens. It's clear SDSU went after Countess when he entered the game, but I thought he held up well. AMDBHG stay away from Woolfolk. Just stay away. I hired you to work in East Lansing this season. At this point, Woolfolk is basically taunting AMDBHG. He's hobbling around on two bad ankles, has his hand in a cast, gets a bloody nose against EMU, and still manages to get 5 tackles.

* For only getting 2 tackles, Craig Roh had another good day. Both tackles were for losses, one was a sack that forced a fumble. All I can say is Roh Yeah!

* Ronnie Hillman was shut down (<100 yards) in three of SDSU's losses last season. I didn't think we could hold him under 100, but if we could keep him under 150, I was confident we'd get the win. He ended up with 109 yards and a 5.2 YPC average. That, combined with Lindley's 23 for 48 passing day were the stats of the game for the defense.

* Hawthorne shows up as number "7A" in the box score. Could hexadecimal numbers be the answer to our "retired numbers" problem?

San Diego 49ers

* I learned during the game that Braylon Edwards now plays for the San Diego 49ers. If I had any WR stats to comment on, they would go in this section. Consider it a place-holder. (In defense of the B1G announcing crew, this seems like a reasonable mistake to make.)

Random, As of Yet, Un-Named Bullets

* Matt Wile. Wait, let me try that again. MATT WILE!!! Yeah, I think he was properly pumped up to play his Dad's team. Net yards per kickoff were 50 for SDSU and 49.2 for UofM. To be even on kickoffs is a win for us. Net yards per punt were 34.7 for SDSU and 43.5 for Michigan. To gain almost a full first down per punt is huge. Two punts were inside the 20, and two were 50+ yards. #82, Terrance Robinson had 2 ST tackles and did a great job as the gunner on punts.

* Jeremy Gallon didn't get a FR in the boxscore (but J.T. Floyd did get credit for a fumble, was that for the time the ball glanced off his leg on the punt return?) but his head's up play to cover the punt was big at the time. That could have given SDSU a huge burst of impetus.

* Kickoff time: 12:00. Yes, it's in the box score. It's hard to quantify what impact it had on SDSU, but it's well known that you never bet on the west coast NFL team traveling east to play the 1:00 pm game. I don't think it's worth 21 points, though.

* Total yards: SDSU 376, UofM 413. We gave up around 450 yards per game last year. My hope for this year is to stay under 400 yards given up through a combination of better defense and slower offensive tempo (fewer plays.) Against a good offense, we only gave up 376 yards. I'll take it.

Big John R. Studd Referee section

* This was our first Witvoet game this year that I recall. I got negged for complaining about Witvoet last season, so just in case the Witvoet family reads this blog, I will say the refs did a great job. Penalty yards: SDSU 55, UofM 25. The refs rightly called several holding penalties where SDSU tried to undress Mike Martin. That hurt them and was one of the reasons they only scored once, even though they were in UofM territory 11 times. Sacks, turnovers, and holding penalties. Those are all the result of putting pressure on the offense. Thank you, Greg Mattison, thank you.

I also wrote a note that simply says, "UCONN," but I refuse to believe that this is 2010. This is 2011, Brady Hoke poops gold nuggets, and Borges and Mattison are the two greatest coordinators ever. So there.

Inside the box score - Game 3

Inside the box score - Game 2, was bumped to Diary Status and front-paged linked twice last week, so I think I'm OK with making this a regular feature. [Ed-M: Yes! Yes you are!] I know that the folks just like having a handy link for the box score, so let's get that out of the way first, and then we'll follow with my commentary:

The BIG story coming into this game was Eastern Michigan averaging 331 yards per game rushing, and how could our rebuilding defense match up with that? During the first quarter, I was starting to believe that Mike Hart was the second coming of Fred Jackson. After that, our defense calmed down, and I found out that Mike is actually an offensive quality control coach. So how did we do against the greatest rushing attack in Ypsilanti? The EMU Fighting Emus tallied 10 rushing first downs, 207 yards rushing, and 4.5 yards per carry. 67 yards came from the 4th best QB in the state of Michigan, Alex Gillette. I was impressed with his running, but EMU could never get the passing game going. I'm a little worried about what this says about our chances against Scheelhaase. Could we be looking at another shootout?

Last week, I mentioned that I was going to be paying attention to the 2nd quarter this year, as we routinely lost the 2nd quarter last season. Jamiemac picked up the theme by making the 2nd quarter score one of his prop bets. A quick glance at the box score shows we won the 2nd quarter 7-3, and after the rough first quarter, that was huge in keeping us in the game. Look a little deeper, though, and you'll see that we ended the 1st quarter with Denard's first interception, giving the Irish a short field to start the 2nd quarter. This was a recipe for disaster last year. Instead, with the Irish starting at OUR 39 yard line (you almost don't need a 1st down to get in FG range) our defense stiffened and forced them into a 3 and out. Three plays, 2 yards, after getting 140 yards on 17 plays in the 1st quarter. That stopped their momentum enough to keep us in the game.

Other items of interest:

* Net yards per kickoff: ND 49.3, UofM 45.3. This was much improved over last week when WMU had a 15 yard per kickoff advantage over us. I did go back and watch our first kickoff last week, and it appeared that Woolfolk was playing the deep safety on the kickoff. The guy who is supposed to run down the returner if said returner gets through the first line. If Woolfolk has the best combination of speed and tackling on the team, I can't fault them for playing him there. It really shouldn't be that much of an injury-risk, but this is football, and those things happen. The kickoff disparity COULD HAVE been huge at the end as the Irish started their last drive on their 39, while we started at the 20. I thought it was going to take a miracle to go 80 yards in 23 seconds (after the first incompletion) and that is exactly what Denard and Gallon produced on the 64 yard play. It called to mind the AC play against Indiana. Instead of going Hail Mary, you throw a 20 yarder and get YAC.

* Gallon and Smith, two players who receive more than their fair share of criticism, combined for 4 receptions, 104 yards receiving, and 2 TDs. And they handled the punt and kick returns flawlessly.

* We had 22 players show up on the defensive statistics section, similar to last week. Although a lot of last night's seemed to be special teams or from our turnovers. It was nice to see our leading tackler be a LB, but the next two were safeties. BWC didn't record a tackle, but he showed up in the box score for recovering a fumble, and he showed up in the box score indirectly by forcing an ND holding penalty. Which leads me to this:

* Penalties: ND 9 for 75, UofM 9 for 82. After a 1 penalty game last week, and a good start to last night's game, we started racking up the defensive penalties, some of which were actually earned. I think those refs throwback hats were a size too small, but I'm not one to complain about officials.

* First downs: ND 28, UofM 16. How the F did we win that game? Oh yeah,

* Turnovers: ND 5, UofM 3. Gotta win the TO battle. Apparently, UofM's stat sheet is crediting the Irish with a fumbled kick return on the last play. And,

* Yards per play: ND 7.1, UofM 9.0. I guess you don't need many first downs when you are averaging 30.7 yards per completion. ND was playing break-but-don't-bend. They stuffed our run (except for Denard) and matched up one-on-one with Hemingway, Gallon, and Roundtree. We played a mixture of defenses, sometimes blitzing (ouch on the upcoming RPS numbers) sometimes doubling Floyd, but generally giving different looks. I couldn't keep track of how many times the play clock got down to 1 second for ND. At one point, I screamed at the TV, "Hey REES, you are not Peyton Manning, snap the damn ball." They ended up using a lot of timeouts and I think that helped us out.

* Attendance: 114,804 (yes, they put the attendance in the box score.) I believe that's a record of some sort. While I was watching out here in Southern California, my brother and his wife were rocking with the students in section 29. He reports that the pom-poms sucked, and I'm generally not a fan of the pom-pom, but I think they looked good last night.

* The referee's name (what don't they put in the boxscore?) was T. Tomczyk, the same as my uncle before his last name was Americanized. After last night, I think we can agree, Notre Dame has been Denardized, AGAIN!

Obviously, the main story told from the box score is a missing 4th quarter. What I also found interesting was the score of the 2nd quarter, UofM 20, WMU 3. I'm paying more attention to the 2nd quarter this year as a result of last year. This next fact has been little discussed on this board or elsewhere, but I find it fascinating. Last year, UofM outscored it's opposition on a cumulative basis in every quarter but the 2nd. Scroll about 2/3 down this link:

We were outscored by a whopping 194-83 in the 2nd quarters of games last year. I think it was a reflection of the inexperience of the team and inability of the coaching staff (particularly the defensive side) to adjust during the game. As soon as we made a mistake in the first half, things started going south and it took them until at least after halftime to snap out of it. How much of this was mental? How much was due to the program being under a microscope in RR's 3rd, make-or-break-it year? I guess we'll never know. Growing up, when we had a tough first half, I was also told by my dad to wait for the third quarter because Bo was a master of the mid-game adjustment. And he was usually right. Well, last year, we dug too big a hole in the 2nd quarter for the half-time adjustments to matter.

One good aspect of MANBALL (or scoring more slowly if you will) may be that the defensive staff has a chance to make adjustments while our offense is taking 8:33 off the clock. After WMU's first drive of 7:11, their next longest drive was only 4:32. Clearly, something changed, and for the better.

Other highlights from the box score:

* ONLY 1 PENALTY !!! That is shockingly low for a first game. Congrats to Hoke and company. Perhaps, again, this is just a symptom of the players being a little more experienced.

* 21 players for UofM made at least one tackle, solo or assisted. So, yeah, we were rotating players in pretty frequently. We have DEPTH!!! Maybe. (In contrast, WMU only had 12 guys make tackles.)

* Net yards per kickoff was 49.3 for WMU, and only 34.5 for us. There were 9 kickoffs total, so we gave up ~67 yards of field position just on the kickoffs. That has to improve next week.

* We won the turnover battle 3-0. A combination of more experienced skill-position players and more blitzing on defense. Let's hope that holds up. Regress to the mean, please, please, please, ...

Normally, I look at first downs to see how the teams did on a consistent basis. This basically throws out the big plays and looks at the teams across the rest of the 60 minutes (or in this case, 42 minutes.) We were tied 17-17 in first downs, but I think you throw that out this week because of the 2 defensive scores giving them extra possessions. Instead, just look at the yards per play. We were at 7.4, they were at 5.0. Last year we gave up an average of 6.1 yards per play. So our defense was better than last year statistically, but it's hard to say too much until we see how WMU does in their other games.